The rise of AI-powered coding has created an unexpected market: cleaning up the technical debt from prompt-generated software. Here's why 'Vibe Coding cleanup' is becoming a legitimate service…
A new service category is quietly emerging in tech: Vibe Coding cleanup. What started as LinkedIn jokes about “fixing AI messes” has become a real business opportunity. The harsh reality nobody wants to admit: most AI-generated code is production-unready, and companies are desperately hiring specialists to fix it before their technical debt spirals out of control.
The vibe coding explosion
When Andrej Karpathy coined “vibe coding” in early 2025, he perfectly captured how developers now work: chatting with AI to generate entire functions instead of writing them. The approach promises 10x productivity gains through natural language programming. GitHub reports that 92% of developers now use AI coding tools, with Copilot alone generating billions of lines of code monthly.
But there’s a problem nobody talks about at conferences. GitClear’s analysis of 150 million lines of code reveals AI assistance correlates with 41% more code churn - code that gets reverted or rewritten within two weeks. Stanford researchers found that developers using AI assistants produce significantly less secure code while believing it’s more secure. The tools amplify bad practices: no input validation, outdated dependencies, and architectural decisions that make senior engineers weep.
The cleanup economy is real
404 Media’s investigation reveals developers are building entire careers around fixing AI-generated code. Hamid Siddiqi manages 15-20 cleanup projects simultaneously, charging premium rates to untangle what he calls “AI spaghetti” - inconsistent interfaces, redundant functions, and business logic that makes no sense. Software consultancy Ulam Labs now advertises “Vibe Coding cleanup” as a core service.
The demand is so high that VibeCodeFixers.com launched as a dedicated marketplace. Within weeks, 300 specialists signed up and dozens of projects were matched. Founder Swatantra Sohni describes a typical client: “They burned through $5,000 in OpenAI credits, have a half-working prototype they’re emotionally attached to, and need it production-ready yesterday.” The Pragmatic Engineer reports similar patterns across Silicon Valley startups.
Why AI code fails at scale
The fundamental issue isn’t that AI writes bad code - it’s that it writes locally optimized code without understanding system context. Stack Overflow’s analysis shows AI excels at small, isolated tasks but fails at architectural decisions. Every prompt creates technical debt: inconsistent patterns, duplicated logic, and security holes that automated scanners miss.
Computer Weekly reports that 40% of AI-generated code contains security vulnerabilities. The tools leak secrets into code, suggest deprecated libraries, and create race conditions that only appear under load. Worse, developers often don’t understand the generated code well enough to spot these issues. Martin Fowler warns this creates “competency debt” - teams lose the ability to maintain their own systems.
The market opportunity
The Vibe Coding cleanup market is growing rapidly, though exact numbers are hard to pin down. What we know: Gartner predicts 75% of enterprise software engineers will use AI code assistants by 2028. If even a fraction of those projects need cleanup - and current data suggests most will - we’re looking at a massive emerging market.
The economics are compelling. Startups save weeks getting to MVP with Vibe Coding, then spend comparable time and budget on cleanup. But that’s still faster than traditional development. The specialists who can efficiently refactor AI messes command $200-400/hour rates. Some are building productized services: fixed-price cleanup packages, AI code audits, and “vibe-to-production” pipelines.
ThoughtWorks reports 60% of their AI-assisted projects require significant refactoring before production. Multiple consultancies are now hiring specifically for “AI code remediation” roles. The market is real, growing, and largely untapped.
What this means for engineering
We’re witnessing a fundamental shift in how software gets built. AI handles the initial implementation, humans handle architecture, testing, and cleanup. It’s not the future we expected, but it’s the one we’re getting.
Gergely Orosz argues AI tools are “expensive junior engineers” - they write lots of code quickly but need constant supervision. The difference is that AI juniors never become seniors. They’ll always need cleanup specialists.
This creates interesting career paths. Junior developers who master Vibe Coding cleanup can command senior salaries within two years. Senior engineers who understand both AI capabilities and limitations become invaluable. Companies that build robust cleanup processes gain competitive advantage.
Our stance
At Donado Labs, we’ve cleaned up enough vibe-coded disasters to recognize the pattern. AI acceleration works, but only with professional cleanup built into the process. We use AI for prototyping and routine tasks, but architecture and critical logic remain human-written. Our “Vibe to Production” service takes AI prototypes and makes them enterprise-ready: proper testing, security hardening, and documentation that won’t make your successor cry.
The companies succeeding with AI coding aren’t the ones using it most - they’re the ones using it smartly. They prototype with AI, then invest in cleanup before technical debt compounds. They treat Vibe Coding like any other tool: powerful but dangerous without expertise.
Next time someone claims AI will replace programmers, ask them who’s going to clean up the code. That’s where the real opportunity lies.
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Comments
I have been taking on "rescue" projects for a while through my business. Previously, the barely-functioning code was usually being generated via outsourcing agencies but it seems the new source is now going to be LLMs.
I imagine it will be the same set of issues really. Just a different way of cost cutting measures. There can be good reasons to take shortcuts but, in my experience, the problems start when you're not mindful that there's a price to pay for taking these shortcuts. Whether it comes from managers, employees or outsourced personnel, it's the same result.
I haven't thought about advertising it as a separate type of service(for vibe coded platforms) yet but maybe I should. The Australian software market is small so haven't been hearing much about the results of those experiments.
By tgsovlerkhgsel 2025-09-2113:051 reply One of the issues with vibe coding vs. outsourcing agencies is the sheer volume of code it can produce in a short amount of time.
I vibe-coded a simple helper script. If I wrote it myself it would have been 1/3rd the lines, not covered most edge cases (some of which were completely irrelevant, some of which actually useful), and it would have taken me way longer than just checking if the vibe-coded code works (this was the "either it works or it doesn't" kind of task, not something where subtle errors could reasonably be introduced).
I skimmed the code and removed the line that deletes temp files to reduce the risk that it accidentally wipes my home dir and ran it. As I was trying to work with the data deeper, I noticed missing temp files, and realized that there were two other temp file deletion lines that I missed.
It's simply too much code for a human to reasonably read, but the speed benefits are real.
(My plan for the future is not reading the code more carefully, it's putting it in a sandbox and letting the AI play.)
By DevDesmond 2025-09-2114:132 reply I like to keep a personal recipe book of prompt modifiers. For bash scripting I often write my prompt and then copy-paste the following to prompt:
``` When making edits to the script, ensure the script remains
- Idempotent - Functional after a fresh install of a virtual machine
Additionally, keep things stupid simple and avoid:
- Unnecessary error checks - Defining colors and custom logging functions - Bells and wistles - Backups - Branching Paths - Script Arguments ```
I find it helps cull back the LLM 's overenthusiasm for abstractions.
By herdcall 2025-09-2114:03 There's a BIG difference, at least with tools like Claude Code: plan mode. I'm now using Claude Code a lot at at work, and the first thing I do is enter plan mode where I can have a "conversation" asking it explain how it would implement. Just a few back/forth later I end up refining its plan to conform to good (or what I think is "good") design, after which it will tell me exactly what it is going to do (with code diffs), which I sign off on (again, potentially after a few iterations). It's only then that it generates the code.
By contrast, on one project many years ago I was reviewing the code generated by an overseas team, and I couldn't make head or tail of it, it was an absolute tangled mess that was impossible to fix.
Probably a good idea to at least add some vibe-coding terms to your website for SEO.
By scorpioxy 2025-09-2111:16 Might be a good idea, though word of mouth and networking is how I get work and SEO has stopped being a useful avenue for a project pipeline quite a while back.
I was thinking of doing something like that, but how does it work for the company in the end? If they vibe coded their project and now have shitty code full of bugs, you come in, fix the bugs and organize the code better and that's it? How do they continue to maintain it if they didn't have the knowledge to set it up in the first place?
By scorpioxy 2025-09-2111:07 They would try to hire and/or build the team they need to move forward, if they have the money.
Knowledge is usually not the problem, it is the shortcuts(or short-term decisions) that got them to a place where they can no longer operate the platform they need to survive. Often this is the cause of prioritizing velocity over anything and everything else. This is choosing the do it fast and do it cheap options with the assumption that it is always correct. That assumption of course is almost never true.
By the way, most cases where I've seen this there's usually an investor involved and they need to impress them.
By Tuna-Fish 2025-09-2113:02 The pattern I've seen repeatedly in real life is that a company does something they don't expect to be important and impactful, cutting every corner they possibly can to shovel out something that minimally meets the requirements. And then that software surprises everyone by actually being wildly successful, and now they have to support it and modify it to a state where they can build upon it. Which might be hard if the product is an unholy mess made by people who knew little of what they were doing and cared about it exactly as much as they got paid for it (that is, not much).
And cutting every corner to get the cheapest possible product out might not have even been the wrong call! Presumably most things made this way fare just as well as they were expected to and die quickly after being made, not spending scarce resources on making them better was probably the right thing to do.
It just sucks when you end up having to maintain strict backwards compatibility to something that was made in two weeks by one guy who took every shortcut on the way to duct-tape together something that technically does what was asked for. (Yes I'm thinking of you, javascript.)
By A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2025-09-2110:141 reply This. Based on what I have seen so far in my company so very anecdotal.
Assuming they know and/or have the capability to do it, between the cost of correcting the issue and push to use AI into everything meaning raising any issue now, politically speaking, is a direct criticism of someone major VP pet projects. I personally simply started to log stuff.
The first thing they need to do first is acknowledge there is a problem to begin with. I am so glad I am not an actual programmer though. It would drive me nuts.
By kelvinjps 2025-09-2112:39 I think if they are interested on fixing it it's because the project provide business value, so then now it's worth it to build the software development team or make a contract with software development agency
By HPsquared 2025-09-2112:04 I suppose a lot of the same kinds of skills will be required for both outsourcing, and LLM driven development.
That is, the "engineering" side of things (requirements gathering, communication, stakeholder management, defining specifications, testing, documentation, and generally managing chaos)
By HarHarVeryFunny 2025-09-2114:068 reply It's a bit strange that Karpathy's "vibe coding" ever gained traction as a concept, although perhaps only among those without enough experience to know better.
As I understand it, what Karpathy was referring to as "vibe coding" was some sort of flow state "just talk to the AI, never look back" thing. Don't look at the generated code, just feel the AGI vibes ...
It sounds absolutely horrific if you care even the tiniest bit about the quality of what you are building! Good for laughs and "AGI is here!" Twitter posts, maybe for home projects and throwaway scripts, but as a way of developing serious software ?!!!
I think part of the reason this has taken off (other than the cool sounding name) is because it came from Karpathy. The same idea from anyone less well known would have probably been shot down.
I've seen junior developers (and even not so junior), pre-AI, code in this kind of way - copy some code from someplace and just hack it until it works. Got a nasty core dump bug? - just reorder your source code until it goes away. At minimum in a corporate environment this way or working would get you talked to, if not put on a performance plan or worse!
For many non-technical people, their relationships with software engineers were producing horrific results. Vibe coding is an indictment of what we’ve been delivering. That a vibe-coded disaster is in any way desirable reflects poorly on us. The branding by Karpathy is cute but irrelevant to its success.
I know people running vibe coded startups. The software quality is garbage. But it does what they want. And that’s all they care about for now. Until a time when software quality impacts their business more than losing control does, they’ll keep vibe coding, rather than hiring a software engineer who bastardises their ideas.
A garbage version of the thing you want is better than a perfect version of something you don’t want.
By HarHarVeryFunny 2025-09-2114:531 reply Using AI doesn't necessitate "vibe coding" - there are smart ways to use AI, where you are managing and structuring the process, as well "vibe coding".
I guess the problem is that AI now allows non-programmers to program. It would be a bit like giving everyone a scalpel and they now either consider themselves to be surgeons, or give it a go regardless since now they can.
I'm not sure where you are getting software engineers that are "bastardising" your ideas?! You may want to look elsewhere, or pay for someone better !
By Thorrez 2025-09-228:05 Are they preferring AI over humans because the AI gives them what they want and humans don't? I thought they prefer AI over humans because AI is much cheaper and faster.
>I know people running vibe coded startups. The software quality is garbage. But it does what they want. And that’s all they care about for now. Until a time when software quality impacts their business more than losing control does, they’ll keep vibe coding, rather than hiring a software engineer who bastardises their ideas.
Well, IKEA's furniture quality is garbage yet they make billions. It's cheap and fast. That's capitalism for you. (not implying that communist countries produced amazing products...)
By thephyber 2025-09-2115:33 [dead]
By stoneyhrm1 2025-09-2114:331 reply Like it or not vibe coding is here to stay, I too don't agree with the concept but have told people in my org that I've 'vibe coded' this or 'vibe coded' that. To us it just means we used AI to write most of the code.
I would never have it be put into production without any type of review though, it's more for "I vibe coded this cool app, take a look, maybe this can be something bigger..."
By nobodynowhere 2025-09-233:48 But ... why? Saying you "vibe coded" when you actually didn't makes you sound like you are doing something, well, dumber than you are actually doing, while also giving unrealistic expectations to people who don't realize you aren't actually vibe coding.
By chubot 2025-09-2114:55 Yes definitely, but I'm pretty sure that he was just saying vibe coding is POSSIBLE and a fun thing to try, to see how far you can get (which is true, it can do some surprising things)
Not that companies should literally try to "vibe code" production software
Two publishers and three authors fail to understand what “vibe coding” means - https://simonwillison.net/2025/May/1/not-vibe-coding/
( I think Karpathy addressed what he meant in this video, though I forget the details: Software Is Changing (Again) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCEmiRjPEtQ )
The phrase got totally taken out of context, probably because it's what people WANTED to believe. They wanted to believe that the hard thing was now easy, and they could make/save a lot of money that way
I still maintain that the original tweet about it was a joke, or at least not a suggestion for doing real work but just a reflection on the freedom of yolo mode coding. It wasn't meant to be instructions.
By HarHarVeryFunny 2025-09-2118:061 reply I'm not sure.. I kind of remembered it that way too, although perhaps not so much as a joke but just a throwaway tweet of what he was up so - experimenting with AI and having fun.
However, I just searched up his tweet, and now I'm not so sure - he seemed to be advocating it as a new way of coding.
By AnotherGoodName 2025-09-2115:27 I feel at this point ‘vibe coding’ is just a disparaging phrase of any AI coding assistance.
As always people can create both good and bad code using the tools at their disposal but right now there’s a lot of upvotes to be had online by simply posting ‘lol vibe coding so dumb!’. It’s tiring at this point.
By mattgreenrocks 2025-09-2117:02 > It's a bit strange that Karpathy's "vibe coding" ever gained traction as a concept
This point in history is not characterized by any real sort of seriousness about...anything, really.
Alternatively, it is the same sort of pleasant fiction that is being fed to CEOs about their workforce being able to be replaced Real Soon.
By dostick 2025-09-2115:15 I suspect that he, as an insider is able to prompt and configure so that he gets good usable results every time, and when he describes that, it sounds so easy and obviously you should do it too.
> Startups save weeks getting to MVP with Vibe Coding, then spend comparable time and budget on cleanup. But that’s still faster than traditional development.
That's the core of situation as described in the article. I wonder how true that is, that it's faster overall than having developers build the MVP.
From what I've seen, I think developers can build just as fast, especially with AI assistance. They may not want to though, knowing full well the MVP/prototype will go directly into production.
Better to take some time to have a decent architecture early on. Product and management probably see that as a waste of time.
On the other hand, vibe coding allows the product team to make exactly what they want without having to explain it to developers. That's the real draw to this, basically a much better figma.
Perhaps there is a market for a product oriented vibe coding tool, that doesn't pretend to make code, but gives developers much better specifications while allowing the product and business side better input in the process.
>> Startups save weeks getting to MVP with Vibe Coding, then spend comparable time and budget on cleanup. But that’s still faster than traditional development.
> That's the core of situation as described in the article. I wonder how true that is, that it's faster overall than having developers build the MVP.
In a startup it's often very important to show traction, and thus decreasing time to market can be hugely beneficial, even if it costs you more time overall.
The same reason people can rationally take on technical debt in general.
I'm skeptical "get to market as fast as possible, damn the consequences" is as relevant today as it was 10 years ago.
People have to be careful not to miss their window trying to be perfect, but first and broken isn't a clear winner over second and working anymore.
By theplatman 2025-09-219:10 There is a balance between getting to market as fast as possible and avoiding an architecture that will immediately make it hard to iterate after MVP.
The problem is that a lot of engineers don’t know how to not over engineer and waste time. And product/sales usually don’t know how to strike the balance.
By dist-epoch 2025-09-2110:34 Twitter started as a in Ruby on Rails webapp and everytime Justin Bieber tweeted the whole Twitter would go down and the fail-whale would appear.
But they grew, and one day could afford hiring professionals to rewrite it from scratch on a more scalable and robust stack.
An MVP? Definitely not. A prototype maybe, but...
For building a prototype, unless you have the discipline to not put the prototype into production and your organization has similar discipline, I wouldn't recommend vibe coding. We all know how hard it can be to convince management that he amazing thing they're using right this moment needs to be scrapped and rewritten because the insides are garbage.
No-code tools are better suited and safer to use in that respect.
By ChrisMarshallNY 2025-09-219:14 This is true, except that in my experience, senior management seems to have a real hard time, differentiating between “ship-quality, but sparse, MVP,” and “lash-up, crap-quality prototype.”
By ChrisMarshallNY 2025-09-219:12 > knowing full well the MVP/prototype will go directly into production.
If they didn’t think that was happening already, they were fooling themselves.
I remember a quote on here, where they said something along the lines of “If your MVP code doesn’t make you physically sick, you’re spending too much time on code quality.” MVPs seem to inevitably become the backbone of the company’s future.
I guess the service could be more accurately described as “C-Suite Cleanup As A Service,” but no one would hire them, then.
